Lovely Grub: Are Insects the Future of Food?
The edible insect industry is still in its infancy, and it’s too soon to tell how it will develop or whether it will succeed. Will we accept insect flour in our snack foods? Can we be persuaded to make waxworm tacos in our own kitchens? Will crickets become a grocery store staple? And will any of this add up to real change? Many other innovations are also being hailed as the future of food, from fake chicken to 3D printing and from algae to lab-grown meat. Whether any of them, including insects, will turn out to make a real contribution to food security and sustainability remains an open question.
For their part, Evans and Reade reject the notion that insects will be some sort of silver bullet. Bugs, they say, will only be a real part of the solution if we are careful and thoughtful about how we integrate them into the food system. In their eyes, entomophagy is about more than merely getting a precise amount of protein on a plate – it’s about making sure everyone on the planet has access to affordable, healthy, diverse, environmentally sound food, and, yes, delicious. “Insects can be a vehicle for something,” Reade says. “But it has to be recognized that it’s not the insects themselves that are going to make it sustainable. It’s the humans.”
In summer 2014, Ben Reade announced that he’d leave the Nordic Food Lab and return to his native Scotland to pursue other food-related projects. The insect deliciousness project is continuing under the direction of Josh Evans.
At first, my meal seems familiar, like countless other dishes I’ve eaten at Asian restaurants. A swirl of noodles slicked with oil and studded with shredded chicken, the aroma of ginger and garlic, a few wilting chives are placed on the plate as a final flourish. And then, I notice the eyes. Dark, compound orbs on a yellow-speckled head joined to a winged, segmented body. I hadn’t spotted them right away, but suddenly I saw them everywhere – my noodles were teeming with insects.